Tag: Indigenous Rights

First Nations and their allies in Canada vow to stop the climate polluting $9.3 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, approved by the Trudeau government a day after the House of Commons had passed a non-binding resolution declaring climate change a national emergency.

Indigenous-led Tiny House Warriors are building homes in the path of the Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to protest the project, which would increase the flow of Alberta tar sands to the Vancouver coast from the current 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000.

The recent decision by an all-white jury to acquit Gerald Stanley, the killer of Colten Boushie calls on us all to confront systematic racism and demand reforms to Canada’s justice system, which “works against Indigenous people at every level”.

Canada is a signatory to nearly a dozen international legal instruments upholding human dignity and the rights of Indigenous women. But the agreements have yet to influence the current analysis of nearly 1200 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) in Canada.

The recent Standing Rock standoff over the Dakota Access Pipeline and eight-year Unist’ot’en resistance camp in northern British Columbia are a manifestation of “indigenous resurgence” against colonialism and fossil fuel developments, including pipelines.

Today, on the occasion of Canada 150, we should be asking ourselves tough questions relating to the role of public policy in Canada’s ongoing efforts at reconciling with Indigenous people. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: “Above all, we must deliberately put Indigenous voices and lived experiences at the centre of policy-making conversations in Canada”.

The federal court’s recent ruling on the Dakota Access Pipeline saga could start a new chapter guaranteeing the rule of law and protection of water protectors, argues Mark Trahant, the Charles R. Johnson Endowed Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota.

Read the open letter recently dispatched to Marion Buller, the Chief Commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by the victims’ families, advocates, Indigenous leaders, experts and grassroots people. The “inquiry is in serious trouble.”